I suppose I was kind of swotty

We moved around a lot when I was a child, so I started off being taught to read at home by my mother. I was briefly at a primary school in London, where we lived when I was about five, but it wasn't until I was six that I started school in west Cork and by then I could already read.

I'm the oldest of four, so I was the first to go off to school and it was a bit of a shock to the system. We moved from London to a small village outside Cork city, Cookstown, and I started at Clough Dubh national school. I had a London accent, so initially I really found it difficult to integrate. It was a school I generally have happy memories of, but it was difficult at the start. The conditions, even at that time - I started in 1974 - were difficult. There were outside toilets that didn't work and there was a strong emphasis on the Catholic religion, which was very new to me, but it was probably typical of a small country school of the time.

I came out of school for a year when I was eight and mum taught us at home, myself and my sister, just because we found it so difficult to get on in school. That year at home was wonderful and we learned a huge amount and actually skipped a class when we came back into the school. When I went back in I was in the master's class. Padraig Kierse was a very unusual man who had a real love of the Irish language and a love of history. He really made classes very interesting and I enjoyed my last two years in that school - somehow everything just worked out suddenly. I think I just needed time to adjust.

I got a scholarship to a Dublin secondary school - my family were still living in Cork, so again it was a bit of a culture shock. I went up to Alexandra College aged 11. I was desperately keen to board, because I'd read all the Enid Blyton books. I got it so wrong. Alexandra is very much a Dublin school and there was a lot of snobbishness there and I was the little scholarship girl up from the country.

It was difficult to adjust but the teaching was excellent in Alex. There were a couple of really good teachers, Anne O'Connor who taught history and Honor O'Connor who taught English. Both were great teachers and certainly I came out with a good education but I did not enjoy secondary school at all. There was a general pattern that the boarders went home at the weekends and Cork was just a bit far to be going home every weekend, so it was a bit lonely.

My family moved to Dublin when I was 14; from then on I was just a day girl there. I certainly wouldn't recommend boarding to anyone, but I was very clear at the time I wanted to do it. I suppose I stuck with it because I didn't want to give up, but I think it's probably easier in a school where everybody boards. When the majority are going home at the end of every day, it's harder on the boarders. I don't think I was the only one who found it tough by any means.

I suppose I was kind of swotty. I was interested in learning and in reading and in languages. I did French and Spanish for the Leaving. I wasn't really very sporty, but I loved art. I never really found the social side of school. It always seemed restrictive, especially as a boarder. College was a complete opening of mind, it was a very liberating. Until then, I think I'd been a bit timid about going out and about.

I was interested in travel, music, politics and current affairs from a very young age. My mother was always very interested in politics. When we were living in Cork, she was campaigning on feminist issues at that time. I remember handing out condoms on the Coal Qua, with her as a young child and I remember arguing about the abortion referendum of 1983 in class.

Although Alex was mixed in terms of denomination, there would have been a conservatism about it - among the other girls more than the teachers. I really remember having to fight my corner on that one.

I suppose I had unusual childhood and there was always a lot of change. When we lived in London we moved around a lot and in Cork we moved a couple of times and the same in Dublin.

In retrospect I think it was a positive experience and I think I'm more confident as a result of it, because you develop an ability to mix and make friends wherever you go and that will always stand to you.

In conversation with Olivia Kelly